When he arrived in Tehran, he was put aboard a military bus with other Arabs from all over the Middle East. They went to an Army garrison in the north. It was a camp with training facilities and few amenities. The students lived in tents, used outdoor toilets, and drew their water from spigots around the area. There was no electricity, but this didn't matter to most of the Arabs, who were from the country or slum areas of places such as Baghdad, Amman, and Riyadh. At first Qazi was annoyed by having to use candles and camp lanterns, but he eventually got used to it as the first couple of weeks passed.
The orientation prior to moving into the hard-core phase of training taught the young men that Iran would be taking over all Shiite insurgencies and bring them into one large, effective army. The boys in the camp would be the cadre of that magnificent fighting force, destined by Allah to march into Europe as conquerors, then accept an unconditional surrender from the Great Satan, the United States of America. This fired up everybody's enthusiasm, and when the training began, they were ready to give it their all.
The first thing on the agenda was to toughen them up. The instructors, harsh and merciless, were all members of the newly organized Iranian Army Special Forces. They sent the Arab kids through obstacle courses, took them on long runs, and supervised prolonged periods of exhausting exercises. After a couple of weeks the candidates were considered properly conditioned for some real soldiering.
The Arab boys went into a program where they learned weapons, demolitions, map reading and orienteering, small-unit tactics, and other skills needed for the basics of combat. A crash course in acquiring a good working knowledge of Farsi was included. One pleasant part of the duty was that they were given an abundance of meat, vegetables, and fruit in their mess tents. Only when they were in the field did they go hungry as a preparation for long periods of tough, relentless campaigning.
After twelve weeks of hard work, they graduated and were assigned to permanent units. From that point on, they went on complicated and demanding FTXs to sharpen the skills taught them. Then Qazi and nineteen other young troopers were chosen for a special assignment in which they would go into a real war. They were issued French FA-MAS assault rifles, ammunition, rations, and brand-new field gear.
After being equipped, the rookies were taken by bus to a spot near the Iran-Afghanistan border, with maps showing their destination, where they would link with a battle group actively engaged in combat. They set off in high spirits, ready to fight and conquer.
Then they were ambushed.
Qazi's buddy, when questioned, gave the same story except that he was a country bumpkin from Yemen who had been recruited into the Jihad Abadi while working as a laborer in Saudi Arabia.
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SEAL BASE CAMP
1200 HOURS
PO2C Bruno Puglisi was on Lieutenant Bill Brannigan's shit list.
The shooting of the snakebitten EPW may have been merciful, but Puglisi had taken it upon himself to perform the deed. He should have waited for orders from the Skipper before taking such a drastic step. Now the Skipper was between a rock and a hard place. The killing of a prisoner was a serious situation, and if the truth came out, Puglisi could be in bad trouble.
The Skipper had glared at him, speaking in a low tone of extreme anger. "You just better hope nobody gets real curious about this. If they do, you're gonna be in deep shit and I'll be having serious career problems of my own. As it is, I'm going to report that the guy was killed during an escape attempt."
"That's technically correct, sir," Puglisi happily agreed.
"Shut up!"
"Aye, sir!"
Brannigan then dropped the miscreant into the front-leaning rest, and chewed the SEAL's ass to pieces with loud bellowing. After venting his rage, the Skipper followed SOP and gave him the choice of administrative punishment or a court-martial. Puglisi had completed boot camp a long time ago, and he knew the better of that deal. He chose administrative punishment under Article 15 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That meant the incident wouldn't go in his personnel record. It also eased the Skipper's problem with keeping the snake-bite incident under wraps.
Now Brannigan could choose a punishment. If he was less than creative and did something like make Puglisi run up and down the mountain trails with a rucksack full of heavy rocks, it would make a hero out of the erring SEAL. In fact, some of the other Brigands might take on the task themselves to see how they could handle it. So the Skipper assigned the slightly miffed sniper to forty-eight hours of watch-and-watch. But rather than let him rest between stints of duty, he had him report to Senior Chief Buford Dawkins for extra "tasks." Consequently, rather than having four hours of sleep during his off-duty time, Puglisi sometimes got as little as one before having to report back to the watch officer for another tour of duty.
The senior chief was inspired, almost artistic, in the jobs he thought up for Puglisi to perform during his "free time." He had him count all the sandbags in One Sector and Two Sector, then report the percentage differences between the two areas. Another time he had him transfer a pile of rocks from one of the destroyed fighting positions to another location, twenty paces away. The rub was that Puglisi had to carry each rock over one at a time, place it down, then turn and go back to fetch another. Those chores and other things, such as using a toothbrush to scrub the deck of the Headquarters bunker and cleaning the Fire Support Section's machine guns, kept the struggling SEAL from getting much sleep between watches.
The rest of the detachment cringed at the chickenshit aspects of the ordeal. The collective feelings of the others were summed up by Joe Miskoski, who said, "You gotta be a real dumb sack of shit to get in a mess like that."
Bruno Puglisi would have agreed with him.
GARTH Redhawk and Matty Matsuno had become good buddies.
This friendship began during a quiet period after the ambush, when they were sitting in the Sneaky Petes' area, cleaning their weapons. The conversation had been the quiet sort common between young men busy at important tasks. Matty, who was wiping down his bolt, asked, "What's that little bag you wear around your neck, Garth?"
Garth explained the meaning behind the medicine bag and showed him the trident insignia, the piece of wood from the Oklahoma tree, and the small rock from South America. "I don't really go around looking for things," Garth said, "but if something is right for the bag, I know right away. And so far I only got these three things."
"It's Indian custom, huh?"
"Well, I prefer to call it Kiowa or Comanche custom," Garth said. "My dad isn't really into that stuff. He's a petroleum engineer and has a real logical and scientific mind. My grandfather on my mother's side taught me a lot about the old traditions."
"Is the way you put camouflage paint on your face an Indian, er--Kiowa or whatever-thing?"
Garth nodded. "My grandfather told me about the different patterns, and I designed the one I use myself. Once when I wrote him, I drew it down for him. He approved." He grinned. "Big medicine."